Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo eBook

“I know a little—­not all. I
want to know everything. Why did you venture
there at all? You did not know the lady.
It was surely a very unusual hour to pay a call?”
said the little man, his shrewd eyes fixed upon his
visitor.

“Well, Mr. Peters, the fact is that my father
died in very suspicious circumstances, and I was led
to believe the Mademoiselle was cognizant of the truth.”

The other man frowned slightly.

“And so you went there with the purpose of getting
the truth from her?” he remarked, with a grunt.

Hugh nodded in the affirmative.

“What did she tell you?”

“Nothing. She was about to tell me something
when the shot was fired by someone on the veranda
outside.”

“H’m! Then the natural surmise would
be that you, suspecting that woman of causing your
father’s death, shot her because she refused
to tell you anything?”

“I repeat she was about to disclose the circumstances—­to
divulge her secret, when she was struck down.”

“You have no suspicion of anyone? You don’t
think that her manservant—­I forget the
fellow’s name—­fired the shot?
Remember, he was not in the room at the time!”

“I feel confident that he did not. He was
far too distressed at the terrible affair,”
said Hugh. “The outrage must have been committed
by someone to whom the preservation of the secret
of my father’s end was of most vital importance.”

“Agreed,” replied the man with the black
glove. “The problem we have to solve is
who was responsible for your father’s death.”

“Yes,” said Hugh. “If that
shot had not been fired I should have known the truth.”

“You think, then, that Mademoiselle of Monte
Carlo would have told you the truth?” asked
the bristly-haired man with a mysterious smile.

“Yes. She would.”

“Well, Mr. Henfrey, I think I am not of your
opinion.”

“You think possibly she would have implicated
herself if she had told me the truth?”

“I do. But the chief reason I asked you
to call and see me to-night is to learn for what reason
you have been induced to go on a visit to this Mrs.
Bond.”

“Because Benton suggested it. He told me
that Scotland Yard knew of my presence in Kensington,
making further residence there dangerous.”

“H’m!” And the man with the black
glove paused again.

“You don’t like Benton, do you?”

“I have no real reason to dislike him.
He has always been very friendly towards me—­as
he was to my late father. The only thing which
causes me to hold aloof from him as much as I can
is the strange clause in my father’s will.”

“Strange clause?” echoed the old man.
“What clause?”

“My father, in his will, cut me off every benefit
he could unless I married Benton’s adopted daughter,
Louise. If I marry her, then I obtain a quarter
of a million. I at first thought of disputing
the will, but Mr. Charman, our family solicitor, says
that it is perfectly in order. The will was made
in Paris two years before his death. He went over
there on some financial business.”